Badawi to remain as PM?

/* October 8th, 2008 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
 Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe to poobalan.com by Email


I had a gut feeling that PM Badawi would not let go off his post easily. He may have given indication of doing so to rat out his political enemies. According to a blog posting by UMNO’s Ruhanie Ahmad, the PM had a meeting with his staunch supporters from 11pm yesterday until 2am today morning and the decision was to remain as president of UMNO and to stand for president post in the upcoming UMNO elections. Not sure for how long. So far, no confirmation of the posting yet nor any news from Putrajaya. Today may yet turn out to be another significant day (we are having many of those this year). By the way, the meeting was attend by representatives of Ali Rustam, who is standing for vice president’s post.

UPDATE: Malaysiakini quotes an insider who says:

Confirming that the meeting did take place, an influential Umno insider however told Malaysiakini that the meeting was nothing but a “casual meeting”.

“He has made up his mind. He will step down. I don’t think Abdullah decided this morning that he would defend his post,” said the source.

The source insisted, however, that this is “most unlikely” to happen as many BN leaders are dissatisfied with his performance.

“His execution of his reform plans is slow and many BN leaders are unhappy. Like I said, he will step down as planned and not defend his post,” stressed the source.

No comments »

Posted in BornInMalaysia

Tags:

Not all chinese schools wants to be converted to government schools

/* October 8th, 2008 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
 Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe to poobalan.com by Email


So says Deputy Education Minister Dr Wee Ka Siong. He says the partially-aided Chinese primary schools won’t be forced to convert into fully-aided ones. It would be up to the board of governors of each school to decide.

“We will not force schools to do so. We cannot give a blanket approval. Otherwise, it will create a mess,” he said in responding to a request from the school board for the school to be converted to a government school.

According to him, the Indian community was aggreable to convert all their partially-aided schools to fully-aided ones. Well, that’s because most of the schools are in pathetic condition and “squatting” on plantation lands. Of course it will be a beneficial move. But for the Chinese schools, some of them are owners of their land and have mutli-storey buildings. They have strong financial support from the foundations and business community. Thus, they prefer to remain out of government hands. They still want to maintain their freedom.

Dr Wee said that while the Indian community was open to convert all Tamil schools in the country, the Chinese were reluctant to do so.

“While the Indian community wants to completely hand over its 374 schools, the majority of Chinese schools are not keen due to the amount they have spent, and because they still want to hold on to the land.”

He said that to date, only a handful of Chinese schools had requested conversion of their status.

The deputy minister also mentioned about the plans (STILL BEING MADE!) on conversion of those schools:

Dr Wee also noted that while plans were being made to allow the conversion of partially-aided schools under the Education Blueprint 2006-2010, there was also a need for a more balanced system of allocation distribution.

“Of course, we have to first look at our overall financial capability,” said Dr Wee, who announced an emergency allocation of RM20,000 to SJK (C) Thung Hon for classroom furniture and to build a guardhouse.

No comments »

Posted in BornInMalaysia, Tamil-Schools

Free HIV testing at government hospitals

/* October 8th, 2008 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
 Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe to poobalan.com by Email


Earlier, I wrote about compulsory HIV testing for Muslims couples effective 2009 and why its not applied for all Malaysians. Ms Umadevi (thank you!) informed that free HIV testing is available at local government hospitals. List of hospitals/clinics is at website of Malaysian Aids Council (MAC) – http://www.mac.org.my/hhosclinic.htm

She also pointed out that making it a law may cause tampering of certificates. She’s right in a way, because anything involving permits, approvals, licensing, and certification means potential for corruption.

However, the stigma of sexual activities and drugs may put off people from volunteering for HIV tests. Couples may find it difficult to convince their partners to go for the test, as it may be taken as sign of mistrust. Parents also can’t be pushy to demand the future son/daughter-in-law to go for test. If not, will be hard to get their children married.

Secondly, the discrimination still exists in that one group is forced, while another is not.

No comments »

Posted in BornInMalaysia

Tags:

MP Kapar Manikavasagam faces RM10 million suit

/* October 7th, 2008 by poobalan | View blog reactions 2 comments »
 Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe to poobalan.com by Email


Well, looks like MP for Kapar, Manikavasagam has a bigger problem on his hands. Remember his statements on police officer Kumaran, regarding death of actress Sujatha?Kumaran made a civil suit against Manikavasagam for RM10 million. He claimed that on Aug 2 last year, Manikasavagam issued a press
statement containing defamatory and false allegations which had caused serious damage to his credibility as a senior police officer.

The high court (presided by judge Datuk Abdul Wahab Patail) dismissed  Manikasavagam’s appeal to set aside the deputy registrar’s decision rejecting his application to strike out the suit.

If Manikavasagam loses the case, a by-election is imminent.

2 comments »

Posted in Indian

Tags:

38 weeks and Krishnasamy murder still unsolved

/* October 7th, 2008 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
 Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe to poobalan.com by Email


38 weeks. Hmmm..If MIC leader fate also like this….normal people no need to say la. Curious enough, the family held press conference in presence of DAP’s Karpal Singh! Makes us think deeply. 🙂

The family of former Johor state executive councillor Datuk S. Krishnasamy has pleaded for an in-depth investigation into his murder.

Krishnasamy’s son Raj Kumar, 33, said it had been 38 weeks since his father was murdered, but the case had yet to be solved although police had detained several suspects.

“I wish to know the number of suspects who have been arrested and why after nine months, the police have not been able to solve the murder case.

“What’s going on? There must be something. They (police) cannot keep on telling us that the investigation is still on, but until now it’s still back to square one,” he told a press conference together with four other family members, here today.

He said since their father’s death, several suspects, including some from the MIC had been arrested, but released on police bail and  presumably were still on police bail.

“Until now, no one has been charged. We have been seeing a lot of people and in these 38 weeks I have written e-mails to several
ministers. However, only (Datuk) Shahrir Abdul Samad (Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister) has replied.“He responded through e-mail that he would try to follow up the matter with the Johor chief police officer, Datuk Mukhtar Mohd Shariff,” Raj Kumar added at the press conference with MP for Bukit Gelugor, Karpal Singh, also present.Meanwhile, Krishnasamy’s daughter Rani, 34, appealed to the public for help to solve the murder case as nine months “is a very long time”.

“I plead to the PM (Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) to please look into my father’s case,” she said.

Police have detained and questioned 13 people, one of them a woman, in connection with the murder. Eleven of them have been released on police bond.

No comments »

Posted in Indian

Tags: